The Police News
Man kills daughter who was also his wife after breakup

New Milford, Conn.

NEW MILFORD, Conn. (AP) — A man killed his wife — who was also his
daughter — and their 7-month-old son and then took his own life after
she broke up with him, according to a 911 call.

Steven Pladl's
mother called police in North Carolina to say she'd had a disturbing
call from him and to ask officers to check on the well-being of her
infant grandson.

The mother told police Pladl said he'd killed his
baby in Knightdale, North Carolina, and his 20-year-old daughter and
her adoptive father, who were shot in Connecticut. Pladl's mother said
he was upset because his daughter had broken up with him. The slain
infant had been born of the relationship between Steven Pladl and his
daughter Katie Pladl.

"I
can't even believe this is happening," said Steven Pladl's mother,
whose name was redacted from the recording of the 911 call released by
police in Cary, North Carolina.

The woman asked police to check on
her grandson, Bennett Pladl. She said Steven Pladl had told her that he
left a key under the front mat.

"He told me to call the police, that I shouldn't go over there," she said.

Police found the baby dead, alone in the house. Authorities have not said how the baby was killed.

"We're
trying to make sense of all the factors that led up to this senseless
taking of life," Knightdale police Chief Lawrence Capps said.

The
911 call came shortly after witnesses in rural western Connecticut
reported hearing what sounded like semi-automatic gunfire Thursday
morning. Inside a pickup truck with the window shot out police found the
bodies of Katie Pladl and her adoptive father, 56-year-old Anthony
Fusco.

Steven Pladl had contacted his daughter's adoptive family
in Wingdale, New York, on Wednesday night and said he would be going to
see them, said Shawn Boyne, chief of police in New Milford, Connecticut.
Katie Pladl and Fusco were shot as they were out running errands.

Police
said Steven Pladl later was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot
wound in a minivan across the state line in Dover, New York.

Steven Pladl and Katie Pladl had been arrested on incest charges out of Henrico County, Virginia, in January.

Since
the arrests, their son had been in the custody of Steven Pladl's
mother. Knightdale police said the boy was last seen alive by his
grandmother on Wednesday night, when Steven Pladl asked to take him home
to Knightdale, telling his mother he planned to speak with his daughter
via Skype.

Steven Pladl previously was married to Katie Pladl's
mother. He told her last year that he had impregnated their daughter and
planned to marry her after obtaining a divorce, the Richmond Times-Dispatch
reported. As a child Katie Pladl had been adopted by a family out of
state, but after turning 18 she reached out to her birth parents through
social media and expressed an interest in getting to know them.

Steven
Pladl had two other children, ages 6 and 11, when Katie Pladl moved in
with the family. Katie Pladl's mother initially learned Katie was
pregnant by reading a journal of one of the younger children. Eventually
Steven Pladl told his other children they were not to refer to Katie as
their sister, but rather as their stepmother, court documents said.

Attorney
Rick Friedman, who had been representing Steven Pladl in the felony
incest case, said he had breakfast with Pladl only a month ago and had
no indication such violence was possible.

"This really bothers me a
lot because nobody ever could have predicted this. If anybody had a
remote idea anybody was in harm's way there would have been no bond
set," he said. "There was just absolutely no prior notice anything would
happen to these people."

As part of the bond requirements,
Friedman said, the father and daughter were not supposed to communicate
with one another. He said Katie Pladl had been living in New York with
her adoptive parents.